Calling Rep. Joe Wilson a "pussy" for apologizing to President Obama in the wake of Wilson's outburst during the president's speech Wednesday night, Muntadhar al-Zeidi today announced a primary challenge for Wilson's South Carolina house seat. Al-Zeidi was briefly jailed in Iraq for throwing both his shoes at President Bush during a press conference in Iraq last December.

Republican Party officials in South Carolina did not immediately dismiss the prospect of Al-Zeidi's candidacy. Said one official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, "Of course, there might be some problems with citizenship, and a language barrier, but we're not that concerned that he threw his shoes at Bush. By the end there Bush was barely recognizable as a Republican let alone a conservative. Ya gotta like a guy who'll stand up and makes his feelings known and not...apologize.

"The other night," continued the official, "a bunch of us was sitting around wishing a couple of shoes would've come flying Obama's way. To hell with this 'civility' crap. Wilson was our hero til he apologized."

Al-Zeidi announced the formation of an exploratory committee and sources close to his nascent campaign claim that in several precincts throughout Wilson's congressional district important Republican donors have called to voice their support.

  Interesting how some of the fiercest defenders of the ruthless efficiency of free markets are suddenly less enthusiastic when it comes to car dealers in their states or districts. Decades worth of bumbling, stumbling, piss-poor management on the part of GM and Chrysler could not in the end withstand the ravages of the economic meltdown. The free market wreaked its vengeance on poor performers.

 

Now, though, when the "invisible hand" hits close to home with the car companies closing dealerships on a massive scale, some republican senators and house members are raising a stink. But wait. How can they suggest that the government has any role in an economic decision a car company makes?

 

Isn't that...horrors! Socialism?

This may be heretical for a TPM blog but in one sense I think it's probably a good thing the democrats didn't reach a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. It seems to me that checks and balances are necessary safeguards. 

It's always interesting to observe which of the stories that seem to be major headlines in the blogosphere eventually make it through some mysterious editorial filter and onto the radar screens of the MSM, to become part of wider national narrative.

The Palin wardrobe fiasco was one that did. Another that should, and it will be interesting to watch if it does, is today's Politico piece by Ben Smith about the Palin insurgency roiling the McCain campaign. Smith's article arrives on the heels of or in tandem with Robert Draper's article in tomorrow's NYT Magazine.

The thread running between both articles raises grave questions about John McCain's leadership and executive abilities. For instance, where is John McCain as all the turmoil, finger pointing and ass-covering is going on? Why hasn't he exerted some of the vaunted leadership experience his campaign trumpets? If he can't control and manage a campaign staff and organization, what would his White House be like? Imagine how chaotic and dysfunctional it might be when the pressures are greater, when there are many more competing centers of gravity, and the stakes much higher.

Will the MSM see those questions the same way? And if it does, will it pose them in such a way that the answers scare the dickens out everyone? And will those answers become one of the final shovels of dirt on the McCain campaign? Stay tuned.

The stock market craters another 700 points today, down 20% in the last 10 days, and McCain is out there ranting about Obama's nebulous relationship with a '60s radical. We're on the precipice of a meltdown and McCain is flailing and ranting like a half-drunk grandfather drifting in and out of some fevered reverie about the past. The fact that McCain has even made it this far and the polls are still as (relatively) close as they are speaks volumes about our culture and what kind of country we live in.

If you don’t think that’s true, just ask Tom Brokaw. His relentless affections meant to reinforce his status as the deified eminence grise of broadcast media have made him a parody of himself. The somber, gravelly voice, the grave, expressionless mien, the “liaison” between NBC and the McCain campaign … memo to Tom: Shut up and go away. And take Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Alan Greenspan and Henry Kissinger with you.

You know how Jimmy Carter just keeps hanging around, appearing in the headlines from time to time? And how most of those appearances alternate between pathetic and just plain irritating? What is it about former presidents and their failed presidencies? Bill Clinton seems destined to become the new Jimmy Carter. Although Carter’s presidency was a failure on a massive scale, Clinton’s presidency was less so but was stained or soiled (sorry for the use of those verbs) by the Lewinsky scandal and near-impeachment. Like Carter, Clinton is desperate for history’s vindication. He thought he would achieve it through Al Gore, and didn’t. He thought he would achieve it through Hillary, and hasn’t (so far). So now Clinton’s appearances in the limelight have taken on the same desperate, flailing quality as Carter’s. The difference is that Clinton is not yet as completely irrelevant as Carter. He can still cause damage, and is trying his best to inflict it on Obama. It’s difficult to understand why there haven’t been more vehement objections from prominent Democrats. Why hasn’t Nancy Pelosi or Rahm Emmanuel or Howard Dean or Al Gore told Clinton to shut up and go away? Since they can’t or won’t, I will. Memo to Bill: shut up and go away.

This not an original thought with me, nor is it new. It was written by someone a few years ago to describe the cultural divide in this country, but in some ways it’s even more applicable given the tumult of the past several days.

The author (I wish I could remember who) wrote that the political divide in this country is no longer simply political or even ideological. The gap is so wide and so profound that it is now two totally separate and competing versions of reality. Those on one side of the spectrum see and perceive the world around them through a radically different lens than those on the other side.

It strikes me now that the same principle applies to anyone who supports or would even consider supporting John McCain. What version of reality are they in touch with? Are they hallucinating? Delusional? Developmentally disabled? How can anyone observing McCain’s erratic, flailing, irrational behavior not be scared to death at the prospect of him sitting in the Oval Office under the pressure of a major crises? How can anyone who watched whatever was boiling just under the surface of his bizarre demeanor at the debate not be worried sick?

He appoints a clueless goober to be the person who will be a heartbeat away from the presidency. Do people recoil in horror at the prospect? No. It helps “shore up his base.” Palin still attracts enthusiastic crowds and has her staunch defenders. What planet are they on?

The answer is that they are on a very different planet; the planet of their reality, where John McCain is not an unstable, impulsive, reckless gambler and someone with a well-documented temper; he’s a hero who will lead or country to “victory” in Iraq and vanquish terrorism once and for all. Sarah Palin believes that dinosaurs and humans coexisted on earth just 6,000 years ago. That assertion is every bit as moronic as believing that the Moon is made of green cheese. And yet there are millions upon millions of people out there who think she’s a spunky hockey mom who would make a great president.

If McCain manages to win, all of us will inhabit that same planet one way or another. As the old horror movie promo said, Be afraid. Be very afraid

Because it can. So goes the old joke. The same principle applies to the McCain campaign. Why do McCain and Palin spew forth lies and distortions, over and over again? Because they can. Because they can get it away with it. Because the average American voter…I’m sorry, I mean the average American, is so clueless, ill-informed, brain dead and tuned out that McCain and Palin can say whatever they want, no matter how outrageous and scurrilous the lie. Karl Rove understands the principle. I have written this same thing in this same space repeatedly. A clueless goofball like George Bush can get elected twice. He and Cheney can utter the most egregious lies and exaggerations while they trash the constitution. The liberal columnists and bloggers howl and scream, gnash their teeth, pound the table. But no one hears or notices outside the echo chamber. The average American family is out filling their chubby faces at Chi’s – Chi’s, after which they make take a slow turn around the mall (to help their massive dinners settle). From there it’s home to watch something as criminally mindless as “Dancing with the Stars” or “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” or some other such garbage. The parents have grown up to become overweight, semi-literate and blissfully clueless about anything important. Their kids are headed in the same direction, and so is most of the rest of the country. So, liberal bloggers, pound away at your keyboards, shout out your indignation with all the fervor you have. It doesn’t matter; it won’t matter. McCain might very well win this election. And, as I’ve written before, God help us.

The much quoted line from Hillary Clinton’s non-concession speech, “We’ve put 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling” has been so much quoted that it’s now a tiresome cliché. Sarah Palin, however, put a fresh fillip on the line when she claimed that with her selection as McCain’s VP candidate, now the glass ceiling has been shattered.
   
And yet, some commentators have observed that McCain has laid a clever trap for the Obama campaign: to wit, if they’re too tough on Palin it will backfire because she’s a…woman. Obama seemed to have sensed this with his overly gracious acknowledgement of her candidacy.
   
But wait a minute, something doesn’t compute. If you’ve shattered the glass ceiling, doesn’t that mean you’re now playing with the big boys in the big leagues? Well, guess what? The big boys play rough sometimes. McCain pokes Obama in the eye or Obama kicks McCain in the shins, rhetorically of course, and no one gives it a second thought.
   
What happens if Joe Biden slices and dices Palin in a debate, which he is perfectly capable of doing? Is that playing too rough? Why should it be any different than if he sliced and diced a male VP candidate? Should a woman from the rugged outdoors who likes to fish and hunt be handled with kid gloves because she’s a…woman?
   
Hillary Clinton wore her toughness like a badge in the latter stages of the Democratic primary. And yet when the chips were really, really down, at what might have been the darkest moment in her campaign, she turned on the faucets on the eve of the New Hampshire primary and sniffled about how “tough” things were to an audience of misty-eyed women. And it worked.
   
So what’s it going to be? If women want so much to be admitted to the locker room, to the playing fields where the big boys play full contact politics, shouldn’t they just buckle their chinstraps and be willing to accept the same hits?
   
Why can’t the Obama campaign produce commercials that showcase the quotes from Alaskan newspapers and Palin’s fellow Alaska Republicans that label her an unqualified lightweight? Because she’s a…woman? Would that further outrage the disgruntled Hillary supporters who are either on the fence or leaning toward, God help us, McCain? Geraldine Ferraro, spokesperson for the disgruntled legions, said that the only reason the under-qualified, inexperienced Obama displaced Hillary was because he was a man. Memo to Geraldine: the only reason McCain put the under-qualified, inexperienced Palin on the ticket is because she’s a…woman.
   
Nancy Pelosi, conversely, has been playing in the big leagues for a long time; And, to her credit, Pelosi told Clinton and her supporters during the primary, in effect, to stop whining and get over it.
     
The Obama campaign should be able to go after Palin as aggressively as they would a man. Women can’t have it both ways. If you want admittance to the men’s locker room, be prepared to get your ass snapped with a towel. And don’t whine about it. 
   
     
   

A great deal of blogging and chattering and opining in recent days whether Obama in particular and the Democrats in general have the constitution or genetic makeup to play hardball in the same big leagues as the Republicans. Here in TPM Josh Marshall wonders whether the inability among center-left parties worldwide to land the first punch or even counterpunch effectively has something to do with an underlying aversion to tactics with authoritarian, right-wing overtones in an election campaign.
    
That’s an interesting point to ponder in a broader intellectual context. But between now and November it’s irrelevant. Another TPM blogger pointed out that politics is visceral, not cerebral. Which is absurdly self-evident. And here’s the coda to that truism: the point is to win. This is not the Grantland Rice poem where the Great Scorer will judge you on how you played the game not whether you won or lost. Uh-uh. Just the opposite: no one will remember how you played the game, only if you won or lost. If you don’t win, you don’t govern. Period.
    
Karl Rove understands. So did Lee Atwater. Dukakis, Kerry: two Massachusetts liberals, the former a successful governor/technocrat with an encyclopedic grasp of the issues; the latter a Vietnam war hero with a long tenure in the Senate, better qualified in every respect than the moronic redneck incumbent. Then came Willie Horton and Swift Boats and windsurfing video. We know the rest. They played fair and lost. And no one admires or remembers them for it.
    
As much as I despise Hillary Clinton and her clan I’m beginning to wonder if she’s right about the steel in Obama’s spine and whether the lack of it may cost him the election. During the primary Obama was in a quandary: the excuse his campaign used was that if he kneecapped Hillary too hard it would alienate the post-menopausal set. Which led to the James Carville observation that Hillary had more than enough testicular fortitude for both of them.
    
What about now? If Obama knees McCain in the groin will that alienate the legions of idealistic college kids and twenty-somethings? Will the Chardonnay elite on both coasts recoil with horror if the Obama campaign drags McCain’s name back through the Keating Five swamp?
    
I doubt it, but there’s probably no way of knowing. One thing is for certain, however: if Obama plays fair, he’ll lose. And for the effete and cerebral among Obama supporters who are horrified at the notion of winning at any cost, just imagine a 7 – 2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.
    

Time for a Keating Five ad—a Keating Five ad run in rotation along with a better and tougher 'seven houses' ad, a '$5-million-defines-you-as-rich ad,  and a compilation of clips of McCain stumbling and bumbling through answers to questions. Time to take the mega-millions in campaign funds and saturate the airwaves.

 

Back in the earlier months of the Iraq war, around the time it was becoming apparent to everyone except Bush and his inner circle that the war was an unfolding disaster, Bush and Tony Blair held a joint press conference at the White House.    
When a reporter directed a question at Blair, he was like Derek Jeter, fielding a range of difficult questions with effortless competence, speaking without notes, delivering cogent, credible answers. By contrast, each time Bush answered he furrowed his brow and looked down at a stack of index cards, shuffling among them looking for a talking point that most closely matched the question. Even with pre-printed answers, his responses were stilted, awkward, slightly off key and delivered with his characteristic Jed Clampett diction. It was a national embarrassment, and it would have been funny had it not illustrated such a pathetic contrast between the intellectual capacities of the two leaders. For Bush, the episode was just one among dozens of similar performances over the years featuring a whole dispiriting litany of malapropisms, tortured syntax, or an otherwise idiotic mangling of the English language.
    Fast forward to the summer of 2008, where the same sort of contrast exists in the presidential campaign. In Barack Obama we have a candidate whose command of the language is masterful. Off-the-cuff or in interviews his grasp of the facts seems comprehensive. He is clearly very smart. The press conference in Jordan showcased his ability to articulate the nuance and complexities of difficult issues. In prepared speeches his rhetoric soars.
    But lately the punditocracy has suggested that perhaps Obama is “too” articulate, too polished, too erudite. Good grief. George Will sniffed that he was a “cosmopolitan.” Patrick Buchanan, who was a fan of the late Generalissimo Franco, and who recently authored a book sympathetic to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, the man who declared a “cultural jihad” in 1992, wondered, with chilling implications, whether Obama was “one of us.”
    No such questions are raised about McCain. Like the pathetic Bush, McCain relied on note cards when he visited a supermarket to talk about food prices. But if McCain seems doddering at times, confuses Sunni with Shiite, is clueless about economic issues and how a computer functions, doesn’t know that Czechoslovakia hasn’t been a country since 1993, makes crude and stupid remarks about cigarettes killing more Iranians, doesn’t know that Iraq and Afghanistan don’t share a common border—all that’s OK with the yahoo class. He’s “one of us.”
    That’s why the polls remain close. If, after eight years of the George Bush- engineered train wreck—the trashing of the Constitution, the debacle in Iraq, standing by and doing nothing as the economy goes off a cliff—if after all that we a elect a candidate in McCain who is almost as clueless and inarticulate and even more warlike, God help us all. This country will be beyond redemption, and not worth redeeming anyway.

Commercial #1 – “Keating Five”


Visuals are stills of newspaper headlines, shots of Keating Five senators with McCain prominent, supers here and there to underline key points including the payoff line at the end.

(voiceover)

In 1989, John McCain was one of five senators involved in a major scandal in the midst of the savings and loan crisis. The senators were known as the Keating Five.

John McCain took money from a savings and loan executive named Charles Keating in exchange for heading off an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board was investigating Lincoln Savings, a failed S&L whose chairman was Charles Keating.

The Senate Ethics Committee censured McCain and the other four senators for their part in the scandal. Keating went to jail. The Savings & Loan bailout cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and tipped the U.S economy into major recession.

John McCain’s role in the Keating Five scandal may have faded from memory over time, but one question won’t go away:

If we couldn’t trust him to do the right thing then, how can we trust him now?


Commercial #2 – “Cindy”

Visuals are stills of McCain and former wife Carol intermingled with shots of new wife Cindy, supers here and there to underline key points including the payoff line at the end.

(voiceover)

In 1979, John McCain met an attractive blond woman named Cindy. Cindy was nearly 20 years younger than he was. He and Cindy began dating, despite the fact that McCain was still married to his first wife, Carol.

McCain had admitted to having other affairs outside of his marriage to Carol.

In his book, “Worth Fighting For,” McCain wrote that he separated from Carol before he started dating Cindy. But that’s not the truth.

Court records show that McCain dated Cindy for nine months, before he filed for a divorce from Carol, and while he was still living with her and their children. Court records also show that he obtained a marriage license in March of 1980 in order to marry Cindy but that his divorce from Carol wasn’t finalized until April 1980.

McCain and Cindy married just five weeks after his divorce from Carol was finalized.

This was all a long time ago but one important question still lingers:

If John McCain’s wife and family couldn’t trust him to do the right thing then, how can we trust him now? 

If I were Obama’s ad guy, here’s a 60-second commercial I’d saturate the airways with right now.

(Camera is FPPOV on Obama, backdrop is like the bio spots from earlier—American flags, quasi-oval office setting)


“I’m Barack Obama. Some people are telling me I need to react to John McCain’s negative commercials, to stoop down to his level and sling mud back at him. But I have more respect for our campaign, and for the American people and the issues that matter most to them.

I want my campaign to be about honor and decency. To be about change in Washington, and change from the same people doing the same old things— the same old George Bush/Karl Rove style of politics, the style of politics John McCain thinks we need four more years of.

So for now I want to keep our campaign on higher level. I’ve said all along this campaign isn’t about me; it’s about you—families who are worried about their future, and their economic security.

But at some point if John McCain turns from an ankle biter into an attack dog, I’ll have to defend myself. And I will. I truly hope and pray it doesn’t come to that. After eight, long dreary years of the same old politics, the American people deserve better.”